Elder Scrolls Online will launch with 4 available Classes. Last week we had a look at the skills of the Sorcerer. This time let’s examine the Class Skills for the last of the class choices: the cunning Nightblade.

[ Nightblade ]

The Nightblade is an assassin: talented in the ways of stealth and trickery, but also in the arts of silent death. She lurks in the shadows, waiting for the right moment to strike and when she does, she will weaken the foe whilst strengthening herself at their expense, before she vanishes once more into the gloom.

Assassination

The first skill line of the Nightblade is aptly named ‘Assassination,’ solidifying the class’s role as the best fit for those players wishing to roleplay as silent killers. The Assassination Passives are: MasterAssassin, increasing duration of stuns for sneak attacks, and while stealthed or invisible you will cause more damage; Executioner, which restores Magicka when you kill a foe with an Assassination ability; Pressure Points, which gives a better chance of getting a critical strike for every Assassination ability on your hotbar; and Haemorrhage, increasing bonus critical strike damage for Assassination hotbar abilities.

Assassination’s Actives include: Assassin’s Blade, which deals moderate damage, but when used against foes with low health, it has a large damage multiplyer; Teleport Strike, which teleports you directly into combat with your foe, dealing damage and stunning them; Blur, a self buff that causes foes attacking you to have a percentage based chance to miss; Mark Target, targeting a foe of your choice that has a high level of health, and causing extra damage against that foe, and in addition when its slain you get healed; and Haste, which increases your attack speed for normal and power attacks.

The Assassination Ultimate Ability is Death Stroke, which deals damage and reduces any incoming healing the foe might be receiving.

Shadow

The Shadow Skill line is focused more on utility rather than causing damage, allowing you to become invisible and incapacitate your foes. The Passives are: Refreshing Shadow, which increases your Stamina regen when you activate a Shadow ability; Shadow Barrier, causing you to take less damage after you emerge from stealth or invisibility; Fortitude, which increases your Health for every Shadow ability you have slotted on your action bar; and Dark Veil, which increases the duration of Shadow abilities.

Shadow Actives are: Shadow Cloak, the ability to become invisible for a short time; Veiled Strike, which deals increased damage and stuns foes whilst Stealthed; Summon Shade; which summons a Shade to attack your enemies and apply a debuff to them, causing them to deal less damage; Path of Darkness, which deals damage in a path in front of you, and quickening your movement speed along that path; and Aspect of Terror, which causes your foes to be afflicted by Fear.

The Shadow Ultimate Ability is Consuming Darkness, which is an AoE snare, meaning that it snares all enemies within a certain radius, and also causes you to become invisible, although if you attack anything within the radius you become visible again.

Siphoning

The last Nightblade skill line is Siphoning, which focuses on damaging your foes over time, wearing them down, and healing yourself at their expense. The Siphoning Passives include: Catalyst, which increases the effectiveness of your potions; Magicka Flood, increasing your maximum Magicka when you have a Siphoning ability slotted on your action bar; Soul Siphoner, increasing your healing for your Siphoning abilities; and Transfer, gaining Ultimate points when you deal damage with a Siphoning ability (and therefore be able to use your Ultimates more often).

The Siphoning Actives are: Strife, the ability to put a DoT (damage over time) on your foe, and during the duration it heals you; Agony, causing a DoT on a foe and also stunning them for a long duration, however the effect is removed by any other type of damage; Cripple, putting a DoT on a foe but also slowing their movement speed and transferring an equal bonus to movement speed to you; Siphoning Strikes, sacrificing some of your own weapon damage in exchange for the ability to restore some of your Magicka and Stamina with every hit on the foe; and Drain Power, for sink blockages. Nah just kidding, it places a debuff on nearby enemies, which transfer some of their attack power to you instead.

The Siphoning Ultimate Ability is Soul Shred, which deals damages and stuns nearby foes in an AoE.

Andy Lex Bain is a 31 year old writer who resides in Tasmania. He enjoys writing, reading, writing video game reviews, gaming, writing fiendish campaigns for his roleplaying club "The Blades of Valour", cosplaying, bushwalking and watching movies, DVDs and anime. He aspires to be a full-time published author and basically spends his days slaving away at his computer, ShadowLord.